[HN Gopher] Physicists are building neural networks out of vibra...
___________________________________________________________________
Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages
and lasers
Author : pseudolus
Score : 237 points
Date : 2022-06-01 10:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| cpdean wrote:
| After-all, we tricked sand into thinking for us so it makes sense
| that certain applications could run on other mediums.
| reality_inspctr wrote:
| but what does the universe think of us?
|
| --my friend on signal
| schmeckleberg wrote:
| well, we haven't been gamma ray burst'd yet. _sheepish thumbs
| up_
| reality_inspctr wrote:
| Bob Moog - who (basically) invented the synthesizer - was a
| passionate organic gardener. His belief system, in many ways, saw
| the two as similarly allowing humans to interface with the
| intelligence of the universe.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > saw the two as similarly allowing
|
| I love bob moog, so can you explain this a little further? How
| is gardening a way to interface with the intelligence of the
| universe?
| kingkawn wrote:
| makes ya wonder what sorts of computing was done by the ancients
| with the natural materials they had available.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Reads like science fiction becoming reality. In particular, the
| science fiction series by Hannu Rajaniemi (Quantum Thief, Fractal
| Prince, Causal Angel) has 'natural computational substrates' as
| one of its themes.
|
| This all seems to exist on the borderland between discrete and
| continuous mathematics, which is a pretty fascinating topic.
| Digital systems rely on discrete mathematics, while things like
| fluid dynamics are much more in the world of continuous smooth
| functions. It seems as if they're really building an interface
| between the two concepts.
| alach11 wrote:
| Indeed. This is straight out of Permutation City by Greg Egan.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| I'm reminded of the Church-Turing-Deutsch principle[0] which
| states that a universal computing device can simulate every
| physical process.
|
| Putting that another way, I think it means that anything that
| can happen in the universe can be modelled by sets of equations
| (which we might not have yet) which can be calculated on a
| universal Turing machine.
|
| There is the question of what can quantum computers do
| polynomially or exponentially faster than a classical computer,
| but I think it's accepted that all quantum computations can be
| achieved classically if you don't mind waiting.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing%E2%80%93...
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| the art and science of measurement is still quite an obstacle for
| us today...
| Agamus wrote:
| Data science is exposing the limits of the paradigm of
| individuation, on which mathematics is based. It is a flawed
| simulacrum of a fluxing universe which never stops changing,
| never solidifies into a value, a digit, an individual thing.
|
| Mathematics as a reflection of reality presumes that there is a
| pause button on the universe. This also explains why philosophy
| has made no substantial progress in the past few thousand years
| - it makes the same assumption in the idea of 'being', which is
| an impossibility for the same reason.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I think data science suffers that more than mathematics
| does...
| Agamus wrote:
| In my mind, mathematics assumes that things do not change
| by saying that anything stays static for long enough to be
| called a "one thing".
|
| The philosophical basis of the concept of "one" is flawed,
| in my mind. As such, the rest of it is a self-referential
| invention, much like logic. While the universe seems very
| much like it is written in the language of mathematics, it
| is not.
|
| On the same note, the metaphysical idea of 'being' makes
| the same mistake, which explains why two thousand+ years of
| metaphysics has been mostly spinning tires.
|
| I think the research in this story is on to something.
| meroes wrote:
| What about something which changes is always equal to
| itself? Or experience is real. Static statements. Curious
| how you'd deny these kinds of things.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > Mathematics as a reflection of reality presumes that there
| is a pause button on the universe.
|
| This sounds more like your personal biases than a fact about
| mathematics.
| hans1729 wrote:
| I suppose the "as a reflection of reality" is the catch in
| that phrase.
|
| Is p built into the fabric of that which is absolute? Which
| statements are we able to make about axioms that hold
| outside of our reference frame?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Pi describes relationships and outcomes we see in reality
| when actions are performed -- and that abstract relation
| explains the commonality in many experiences.
|
| Eg, tossing match sticks relates to pi.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVivjuMfWA
| dhon_ wrote:
| This reminds me of the method of calculating Fourier transform by
| refracting light through a prism and reading off the different
| frequencies. You get the "calculation" for free.
| SilasX wrote:
| Like how mirrors "compute" the (appropriately defined) reverse
| of an image?
| V-2 wrote:
| This perspective fits nicely with the simulation theory.
|
| If we accept it, for argument's sake, then what's happening is
| essentially delegating the computation to the ultra-meta-
| computer that runs the simulation.
| Syzygies wrote:
| Whether the universe is a simulation is unknowable, but the
| universe could consist of thought. If so, this research is
| dangerous; like the Trinity nuclear test, the conflagration
| could alter our neighborhood of the universe.
|
| I had a pretty convincing revelation last night that the
| simulation was run by insects. I could only get back to sleep
| by ridiculing myself for such a derivative thought. Or is
| there a reason it's universal?
| schmeckleberg wrote:
| I think Diaspora by Greg Egan covers some of this territory
|
| ...that or the much older idea that if the whole universe
| is the dream of a dragon (or a butterfly or Chuang Chou)
| then let's not do anything that's too startling or
| implausible so we don't wake them up and end it all!
| arrow7000 wrote:
| It also fits nicely with the universe just being
| mathematically consistent
| V-2 wrote:
| This misses the "computation" (being shifted from one layer
| to another) aspect though.
|
| Universe being mathematically consistent and being
| simulated are completely orthogonal concepts.
| arrow7000 wrote:
| I understood your comment to be an argument in favour of
| the simulation hypothesis. So my comment says that that
| doesn't work.
|
| On second reading though it seems like all you're
| proposing is a mental model for 'analog' computation;
| that it's like outsourcing the computation to a lower
| level of hardware. Then yes I agree with that.
| alliao wrote:
| oh god, I can see it coming. elaborated analogue music player
| for a special price. it's using nothing but light. the fuzzy
| output will be it's feature; sought after by misdirected
| audiophiles...
| nurettin wrote:
| This is solarpunk material.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Is it calculation or simulation?
| Banana699 wrote:
| Not much difference here, Calculation (or, more generally,
| Computation) is the manipulation of abstract symbols
| according to pure rules that may or may not represent
| concrete entities, e.g. the simplification of polynomials
| according to the rule of adding like powers.
|
| Simulation is when we manipulate things (concrete or
| abstract) according to the rules that govern other concrete
| things, e.g. pushing around balls in circles to (highly
| inaccurately) represent the orbit of planets around a star.
|
| Not all calculation is simulation, and not all simulation is
| calculation, but there exists an intersection of both.
|
| The key trick you can do with that last category is that when
| the physical system you're simulating is controllable enough,
| you can use the correspondence in the other direction: Use
| the concrete things to simulate the abstract things. It's
| simulation, because you're manipulating concrete entities
| according to the rules that govern other entities (who happen
| to be abstract),but what you're doing also amounts to doing a
| calculation with those abstract entities.
| [deleted]
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| An even better one - holding an image at the focal point of a
| lens produces its Fourier transform at the focal point on the
| other side of the lens[0]. It is used for "analog" pattern
| matching[1]. There is an interesting video explaining this on
| the Huygen Optics Youtube channel[2].
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_optics
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_correlator
|
| [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FZ4igNxNA
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Analog computers are pretty awesome!
|
| Say you take a standard slide rule with two log scales, and
| want to do a division problem, x/y. There's more than one way
| to do it. I can think of at least 3. One of them won't just
| compute x/y for your particular x, but will compute x/y for ANY
| x.
|
| Accuracy is always the issue with analog stuff, but they sure
| are neat.
|
| Another fun one to contemplate is spaghetti sort. With an
| analog computer of sufficient resolution, you can sort n
| elements in O(n). You represent the numbers being sorted by
| lengths of spaghetti. Then you put them on the table straight
| up and bring a flat object down until it hits the first and
| largest piece of spaghetti. You set that down and repeat the
| process, selecting the largest element of the set every time.
|
| I've always liked the idea of hybrid systems. I envision one
| where you feed the analog part of your problem with a DAC, then
| get a really close answer up to the limit of your precision
| from the analog component, then pass that back out to an ADC
| and you have a very very close guess to feed into a digital
| algorithm to clean up the precision a bit. I bet you could
| absolutely fly through matrix multiplication that way. You
| could also take the analog output and adjust the scale so it's
| where it needs to be on the ambiguous parts, then feed it back
| into your analog computer again to refine your results.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > spaghetti sort
|
| Isn't this how very old sorting machines with punch cards
| worked? I'm thinking of the kinds used by the census or
| voting machines in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I think they used radix sort, which is also pretty cool
| hbarka wrote:
| Where does a doctor's stethoscope fit in? Other examples:
| Mechanic's stethoscope for diagnosing an engine, airplane
| vibrations to foretell maintenance, bump oscillations to
| grade quality of a roadway.
| teshier-A wrote:
| Surprised to see no mention of LightOn and its Optical
| Processing Unit !
| willhinsa wrote:
| The universe is already thinking for itself! It wrote this
| comment and built this website, after all.
| tabtab wrote:
| And trying to expel humans after seeing them in action.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Human thought _is_ the universe thinking. Life, inclusive of
| humanity, is contiguous with deterministic physical reality.
| rbn3 wrote:
| This instantly reminded me of the paper "pattern recognition in a
| bucket"[0], which I've seen referenced a lot when I first started
| reading about AI in general. I only have surface-level knowledge
| about the field, but how exactly does what's described in the
| article differ from reservoir computing? (The article doesn't
| mention that term, so I assume there must be a difference)
|
| [0]
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221531443_Pattern_R...
| inasio wrote:
| Relevant: DARPA last year launched a program (competition) to
| build analog solvers that can solve (some) optimization problems
| [0]:
|
| [0]: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-10-04
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Humans are the universe thinking for itself.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Sure, but I'd prefer a computer without self-doubt.
| willis936 wrote:
| A system without introspection would never self-improve.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Does evolution introspect? did the universe evolve the
| gecko with or without introspection?
| willis936 wrote:
| Evolution as a system does not improve, no. Evolution was
| superseded by self-improving (human thought-based)
| systems.
|
| A gecko born did not self-improve. The species average
| offspring improved externally via natural selection.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Evolution was superseded by self-improving (human
| thought-based) systems.
|
| Strictly correct, but consider that our ideas are also
| going evolution. What we learn depends on our
| environment. We retain what's useful and don't what's not
| and we also pass it down through generations... This is
| pretty much natural selection, just at a different level.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "A gecko born did not self-improve."
|
| This might not necessarily be true, for example, a
| genetic defect that a gecko figures out how to leverage
| through self improvement (to feed itself) might then be
| passed on to offspring.
| the_other wrote:
| Some self doubt is critical for right thinking.
| hackernewds wrote:
| some self-doubt is right for critical thinking
| guerrilla wrote:
| Well, all animals are...
| jb1991 wrote:
| Indeed, it is said that "life is the universe's way of looking
| back at itself."
| spideymans wrote:
| Then perhaps the best way to make the universe think for us is
| to produce a biological computer, similar in nature to a brain.
| ben_w wrote:
| This is more like "Surprise! Turns out panpsychism was the
| right answer all along!"
| lolive wrote:
| Ok. But then:
|
| - what is the question?
|
| - what is the answer?
| ben_w wrote:
| > what is the question?
|
| Is the simulation hypotheses more or less plausible?
|
| > what is the answer?
|
| Supren supren, suben suben, maldekstra dekstra, maldekstra
| dekstra, bee aye komenco. ;)
| porkphish wrote:
| Magic 2.0?
| ben_w wrote:
| Jes, kvankam mi ankau povis paroli Esperanto antaue legi
| la libro (or rather, listened; audiobook), so when that
| line happened I recognised it even faster than Martin
| did.
| danbruc wrote:
| _Is the simulation hypotheses more or less plausible?_
|
| It has always been implausible and it will most likely
| stay that way.
| mckirk wrote:
| How so?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| When was this conclusion reached, i totally mised the
| announcement
| danbruc wrote:
| Right when it was formulated. In the best case - assuming
| the simulation hypothesis does not have any flaws, i.e.
| there are no hidden assumptions or logical flaws or
| something along that line - the simulation hypothesis
| provides a trilemma, i.e. one of three things has to be
| true. That we are living in a simulation is only one of
| them and arguably the most implausible one.
|
| But let us just assume we continue exploring and
| inspecting our universe and one day we discover that
| space is quantized into small cubes [1] with a side
| length of a thousand Planck lengths just like a voxel
| game world. Now what? Are we living in a simulation? Is
| this proof?
|
| Actually, you probably would not be any wiser. How would
| you know whether the universe just works with small
| voxels and we wrongly assumed all the time that space is
| continuous or whether this universe is a simulation using
| voxels and somewhere out there is the real universe with
| continuous space? You do not know what a real universe
| looks like, you do not know what a simulated universe
| looks like, you just know what our universe looks like.
| How will you ever tell what kind our universe is?
|
| [1] This is purely hypothetical, I do not care about how
| physically realistic this is, what kind of problems with
| preferred reference frames or what not this might cause,
| let us just pretend it makes sense.
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| The simulation hypothesis is so cute.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Your post is not putting forward any argument about
| Plausability or Probability, you are just saying that the
| theory is not falsifiable / we will never fins out, like
| argument about God.
|
| The argument about probability goes something like this:
| there is only one real universe, where an advanced
| species like us would evolve. Eventually we would create
| multiple simulations. If advanced specicies evolves in a
| simulation, they create their own simulation.
|
| Therefore there is only one real universe, but many
| simulations, so chances are we are in a simulation. It
| also could explain why we are alone in the universe.
|
| Holographic theory suggest that the whole universe coupd
| be a hologram around a 4D black hole or something, so
| also appears to hint in this direction
| danbruc wrote:
| _Your post is not putting forward any argument about
| Plausability or Probability [...]_
|
| Maybe not with enough emphasis, but I did - the other two
| options of the trilemma seem much more plausible.
|
| _[...] you are just saying that the theory is not
| falsifiable / we will never fins out, like argument about
| God._
|
| This depends. If your believe includes, say, god reacts
| to prayers, then we can most certainly test this
| experimentally. But overall the two may be somewhat
| similar - unless god or the creator of the simulations
| shows up and does some really good magic tricks, it might
| be hard to tell one way or another.
|
| _The argument about probability goes something like
| this: there is only one real universe, where an advanced
| species like us would evolve._
|
| You do not know that there is only one universe. You do
| not know that we qualify as an advanced species with
| respect to cosmological standards.
|
| _Eventually we would create multiple simulations._
|
| Will we? What if we go extinct before we reach that
| capability? What if we decided that it is unethical to
| simulate universes? What if this is not feasible
| resource-wise?
|
| _If advanced specicies evolves in a simulation [...]_
|
| Will they? Can they? I think it is a pretty fair
| assumption that simulations in general require more
| resources than the real system or provide limited
| fidelity. If you want to simulate the mixing of milk in a
| cup of coffee, you will either need a computer much
| larger than the cup of coffee or on a smaller computer
| the simulation will take much longer than the real
| process or you have to use some crude fluid dynamics
| simulation that gives you an acceptable macroscopic
| approximation but ignores all the details like positions
| and momenta of all the atoms. Therefore I would say that
| any simulation can at best simulate only a small fraction
| of the universe the simulation is running in and it is
| not obvious that a small part would be enough to produce
| simulated humans.
|
| _[...] they create their own simulation._
|
| Everything from above applies, there are reasons why this
| might not happen. And with every level you go down the
| issues repeat - can and will they create simulations? And
| the simulated universes are probably shrinking all the
| time as well as you go deeper.
|
| _Therefore there is only one real universe, but many
| simulations, so chances are we are in a simulation._
|
| Sure, if there are many simulations and only one real
| universe, then it might be likely that we are in a
| simulation. Even then there are some caveats like for
| example each simulation also has to be reasonably big and
| contain billions of humans or they can have fewer humans
| but then there must be more of the simulations, otherwise
| it might still be more likely that we are not in any of
| the simulations.
|
| Anyway, this all only applies if there is such a set of
| nested simulations, then we are probably simulated, but
| the real question is how likely is the existence of this
| nested simulations? Is it even possible?
|
| _It also could explain why we are alone in the
| universe._
|
| We do not know that we are alone. And even if we are
| alone, there are more reasonable explanations then a
| simulation. And who even says that we would be alone in a
| simulation?
|
| _Holographic theory suggest that the whole universe
| coupd be a hologram around a 4D black hole or something,
| so also appears to hint in this direction_
|
| It does not. The holographic principle just suggest that
| for certain theories in n dimensions there is a
| mathematically equivalent theory with only n-1
| dimensions. The best known example is the AdS/CFT
| correspondence which shows that certain theories of
| quantum gravity based on string theory have a
| mathematically equivalent formulation as conformal field
| theories on the boundary of the space. Whether this is a
| mathematical curiosity or whether this has some deep
| reasons is everyone's guess.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "Right when it was formulated."
|
| False, like many 'Beyond the bang' physics hypothesis,
| these are non falsifiable claims that can still be
| interesting to discuss since humans can think about such
| abstractions.
|
| (Note that Godel et al. showed that non-falsifiable does
| not necessarily mean false).
| zackmorris wrote:
| The Last Question:
| http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html
|
| The Last Answer:
| https://www.scritub.com/limba/engleza/books/THE-LAST-
| ANSWER-...
| rgrs wrote:
| yes
| falcor84 wrote:
| - "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
|
| -"forty two"
| hprotagonist wrote:
| [[ liebniz chuckling in the background ]]
| subless wrote:
| Well Tesla did say and I quote "If you want to find the secrets
| of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and
| vibration."
|
| AND
|
| "The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will
| make more progress in one decade than in all the previous
| centuries of its existence."
|
| I think we'll make great progress if we eat those words.
| FredPret wrote:
| I wonder if we'll end up with a hyper-intelligent shade of the
| colour blue
| discreteevent wrote:
| When I first came across machine learning it reminded me of
| control theory. And sure enough if you search around you get to
| articles like this [1] saying that neural networks were very much
| inspired by control theory. The bit of control theory that I was
| taught way back was about analog systems. I have no idea if the
| electronic circuit mentioned at the end is even like a classical
| control system but it does feel a bit like something coming
| around full circle.
|
| [1] https://scriptedonachip.com/ml-control
| EricBurnett wrote:
| I've long been enamored with the idea of learning from analog
| computers to build the next generation of digital ones. In some
| perspective all our computers are analog, of a sort - today's
| computer chips are effectively leveraging electron flow through a
| carefully arranged metal/silicon substrate, with self-
| interference via electromagnetic fields used to construct
| transistors and build up higher order logic units. We're now
| working on photonic computers, presumably with some new property
| leading to self interference, and allowing transistors/logic
| above that.
|
| "Wires" are a useful convenience in the electron world, to build
| pathways that don't degrade with the passing of the elections
| themselves. But if we relax that constraint a bit, are there
| other ways we can build up arrangements of "organized flow"
| sufficient to have logic units arise? E.g. imagine pressure waves
| in a fluid -filled container, with mini barriers throughout
| defining the possible flow arrangement that allows for
| interesting self-reflections. Or way further out, could we use
| gravitational waves through some dense substance with carefully
| arranged holes, self-interfering via their effect on space-time,
| to do computations for us? And maybe before we get there, is
| there a way we could capitalize on the strong or weak nuclear
| force to "arrange" higher frequency logical computations to
| happen?
|
| Physics permits all sorts of interactions, and we only really use
| the simple/easy-to-conceptualize ones as yet, which I hope and
| believe leaves lots more for us to grow into yet :).
| 323 wrote:
| > _It employs two-dimensional quasiparticles called anyons,
| whose world lines pass around one another to form braids in a
| three-dimensional spacetime (i.e., one temporal plus two
| spatial dimensions). These braids form the logic gates that
| make up the computer. The advantage of a quantum computer based
| on quantum braids over using trapped quantum particles is that
| the former is much more stable._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Electricity is also a wave. The wires are essentially
| waveguides for particles/waves traveling at near luminal
| speeds. So in theory anything done with electricity could be
| replicated using other waves, but to make it faster you would
| need waves that travel faster than electrons through a wire.
| Photons through a vacuum might be marginally faster, but
| pressure waves though a fluid would not.
|
| If bitflips are a problem in a modern chip, imagine the number
| of problems if your computer ran on gravity waves. The
| background hum of billions of star collisions cannot be blocked
| out with grounded tinfoil. There is no concept of a faraday
| cage for gravity waves.
| lupire wrote:
| Gravity is a poor source of computation because it is
| incredibly weak - 10^-43 vs electron force. Even if you add
| several powers of 10 for all the metal wire harness and
| battery chemistry around the electrons, you still get far
| more usable force per gram from electricity and metal than
| you do from gravity.
| otikik wrote:
| Think Big.
|
| A computer that's also a Galaxy.
| alephxyz wrote:
| With latency measurable in millennias
| cjsawyer wrote:
| Have we checked to see if this is already the case?
| stochtastic wrote:
| Nitpick: gravity waves [1] pretty universally refer to waves
| in fluid media in which the restoring force is buoyancy.
| Ripples in spacetime are usually called _gravitational_
| waves.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave
| altruios wrote:
| A faraday cage for gravity waves would be awesome... I mean -
| computers are nice - but you hit the nail on the head for
| revolutionary tech.
| markisus wrote:
| Is it even theoretically possible to waveguide gravity? The
| electric field can be positive and negative, but gravity is
| unsigned -- there is no anti-gravity. This is probably
| related to what you're saying about faraday cages.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Gravitational waves can either stretch or contract
| spacetime relative to a baseline. Since the Einstein field
| equations are nonlinear, I think gravitational waves can be
| "refracted" when traveling through a region with a high
| baseline curvature, so maybe waveguides are possible.
| Gravitational lenses do lens gravitational waves in
| addition to light.
| Optimal_Persona wrote:
| It's not unsigned, if you look on the back it says "Come
| together, you all. Love, The Universe." ;-)
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Gravity is antigravity if you run time backwards.
| huachimingo wrote:
| Its like procedural generation: hide the data into a
| formula/algorithm, so it makes less space.
|
| Replace "data" with "computation", and "formula" with physical,
| less expensive processes.
| toss1 wrote:
| The subheader: >>Physicists are building neural networks out of
| vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of
| computing lies in exploiting the universe's complex physical
| behaviors.
|
| I.e., analog can do insane levels computing (it's had 13+ billion
| years to evolve, but digital computing is easier to think about,
| so, like the hapless drunkard looking for his lost key under the
| streetlight because it'll be easier to see (instead of where he
| most likely dropped it), we pursue digital because it's easier to
| reason about. TBF, digital does yield bigger results much more
| quickly and flexibly, but some really interesting problems will
| likely require further exploration of the analog computing space.
| [deleted]
| momenti wrote:
| I wonder what kind of speedup can we expect from neuromorphic
| computing within the next 5-10 years?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This is why real computer science is pencil-and-paper work, not a
| sub-field of electronics.
|
| Electronics is great because we can create some specific fast,
| reproducible physical phenomena with it (logic gates, symbol
| storage and retrieval). But any physical principle that can
| create fast, reproducible phenomena would be just as valuable for
| computing. _Diamond Age_ posits smart-books that operate on
| atomic-scale "rod logic" mechanical phenomena. Cells do
| something that looks an awful lot like computation with protein
| chemistry.
| lisper wrote:
| A better title would have been: how to make the universe do (a
| whole lot of) math for us [1]. What so-called neural networks do
| should not be confused with thinking, at least not yet.
|
| And the fact that we can get the universe to do math for us
| should not be surprising: we can model the universe with math, so
| of course that mapping works in the other direction as well. And
| this is not news. There were analog computers long before there
| were digital ones.
|
| ---
|
| [1] ... using surprisingly small amounts of hardware relative to
| what a digital computer would require for certain kinds of
| computations that turn out to be kind of interesting and useful
| in specific domains. But that's not nearly as catchy as the
| original.
| hans1729 wrote:
| assertion: thinking is synonymous with computation (composed
| operations on symbolic systems).
|
| computation is boolean algebra.
|
| -> therefore, doing math _is_ to think.
|
| I'm not trying to be pedantic, I just don't think using
| intuitive associations with words helps clarifying things. If
| your definition for thought diverges here, please try to
| specify how exactly: what is thought, then? Semi-autonomous
| "pondering"? Because the closer I look at it, that, too,
| becomes boolean algebra, calling eval() on some semantic
| construct, which boils down to symbolic logic.
|
| What you may mean is that "neural" networks are performing
| statistics instead of algebra, but that's not what the article
| is about, is it?
| mannykannot wrote:
| > If your definition for thought diverges here, please try to
| specify how exactly: what is thought, then?
|
| This is a burden-shifting reply of "so prove me wrong!" to
| anyone who feels that your assertion lacks sufficient
| justification for it to be taken as an axiom.
| DANK_YACHT wrote:
| The original commenter also made a random assertion: "doing
| math is not thinking." The person you're responding to
| attempted to provide a definition of "thinking."
| mannykannot wrote:
| The original commenter's comment does not contain this
| claim. I suppose it could have been edited, though by the
| time I saw it, I believe the window for editing had
| closed.
|
| Neither what lisper actually says nor what hans1729
| replied with are random assertions, and, furthermore,
| they are each entitled to assert whatever axioms they
| like - but anyone wanting others to accept their axioms
| should be prepared to assume the burden of presenting
| reasons for others to do so.
| meroes wrote:
| Is a ruler and compass computation? They don't operate
| symbolically and are computers.
| sweetdreamerit wrote:
| > I don't think using intuitive associations with words helps
| clarify things Sincere question: do you _think_ that "think
| using intuitive associations with words" can be safely
| translated to "compute using intuitive associations with
| words"? I don't _think_ so. Therefore, even if thinking is
| also computing, reducing thinking to boolean algebra is a
| form of reductionism that ignores a number of _emergent_
| properties of (human) thinking.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Fair question/point. Yes, I do think so.
|
| The intuitive model associated with some variable/word as a
| concept relates to other structures/models/systems that it
| interfaces with. Just because the operator that accesses
| these models with rather vague keys (words) has no clear
| picture of what exactly is being computed on the surface,
| doesn't mean that the totality of the process is not
| computation. It just means that the emergent properties are
| not mapped into the semantic space which the operator (our
| attention mechanisms) operates on. From my understanding,
| the totality I just referred to is a graph-space, it
| doesn't escape mathematics. Then again, I can't _know_ or
| claim to do so.
| troyvit wrote:
| We can model the universe with math because math is what we
| have to model the universe with. The fact that it can talk back
| to us in math is amazing because to me it means that math is
| not a dead end cosmically, which means we might be able to use
| it to communicate with other intelligences after all.
| misja111 wrote:
| > we can model the universe with math, so of course that
| mapping works in the other direction as well.
|
| This is not so obvious as you make it appear. For instance, we
| can model the weather for the next couple of days using math.
| But letting the weather of the next couple of days calculate
| math for us doesn't work very well. The reason is that we can't
| set the inputs for the weather.
|
| This problem comes up in various forms and shapes in other
| 'nature computers' as well. Quantum computers are another
| example where the model works brilliantly but setting the pre-
| and side conditions in the real world is a major headache.
| goldenkey wrote:
| You can use the weather or a bucket of water or well, any
| sufficiently complex chaotic system, as a reservoir computer
| though:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservoir_computing
| yetihehe wrote:
| Reservoir computing still needs to provide input. How do
| you input into weather? And if you find that you indeed can
| provide inputs to weather, you should ask if you _should_
| provide inputs into weather. Using weather as a computer
| might simply be unethical and could get you killed (after
| some angry farmers come knocking on your lab door because
| you ruined their harvest).
| lisper wrote:
| I didn't mean to imply that implementing it should be easy.
| Only that it should be unsurprising that it is possible.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > What so-called neural networks do should not be confused with
| thinking, at least not yet.
|
| I disagree:
|
| I think neural networks are learning an internal language in
| which they reason about decisions, based on the data they've
| seen.
|
| I think tensor DAGs correspond to an implicit model for some
| language, and we just lack the tools to extract that. We can
| translate reasoning in a type theory into a tensor DAG, so I'm
| not sure why people object to that mapping working the other
| direction as well.
| V__ wrote:
| This internal language, if I'm not mistaken, is exactly what
| the encoder and decoder parts of the neural networks do.
|
| > in which they reason about decisions
|
| I'm in awe of what the latest neural networks can produce,
| but I'm wary to call it "reasoning" or "deciding". NNs are
| just very complex math equations and calling this
| intelligence is, in my opinion, muddying the waters of how
| far away we are from actual AI.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > I'm in awe of what the latest neural networks can
| produce, but I'm wary to call it "reasoning" or "deciding".
|
| I think humans find it quite difficult to talk about the
| behaviour of complex entities without using language that
| projects human-like agency onto those entities. I suspect
| its the way that our brains work.
| Banana699 wrote:
| Indeed, I'm an atheist who absolutely loves biology. I
| adore all the millions upon millions of tiny and huge
| complex machines that Evolution just spits left and right
| merely by being a very old, very brutal, and very stupid
| simulation running for 4 billion years straight on a
| massive, inefficiently-powered distributed processor.
|
| And I can never shake the unconscious feeling that all
| this is _purposeful_ , the idea that all this came by
| literally throwing shit at a wall and only allowing what
| sticks to reproduce warps my mind into unnatural
| contortions. The sheer amount of _order_ that life is,
| the sheer regularity and unity of purpose it represents
| amidst the soup of dead that is the universe. It 's...
| unsettling?
|
| Which is why I personally think the typical "Science^TM"
| way of argument against traditional religions misguided.
| Typical religons already make the task of refuting them a
| thousand time easier by assuming a benevolent creator,
| which a universe like ours, with a big fat Problem Of
| Evil slapped on its forehead, automatically refutes for
| you.
|
| But the deeper question is whether there is/are
| Creator(s) at all: ordered, possibly-intellignet (but
| most definitely not moral by _any_ human standards)
| entities, which spewed this universe in some manner that
| can be approximated as purposeful (or even, perhaps, as a
| by-product of doing a completely unrelated activity, like
| they created our universe on accident while,or as a
| result of, doing another activity useful to them, like
| accidental pregnancies to us humans). This is a far more
| muddled and interesting question and "Science" emites
| much more mixed signals than straight answers.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > NNs are just very complex math equations
|
| So is the equation modeling your brain.
|
| > This internal language, if I'm not mistaken, is exactly
| what the encoder and decoder parts of the neural networks
| do.
|
| The entire ANN is also a model for a language, with the
| "higher" parts defining what terms are legal and the
| "lower" defining how terms are constructed. Roughly.
|
| > I'm in awe of what the latest neural networks can
| produce, but I'm wary to call it "reasoning" or "deciding".
|
| What do you believe you do, besides develop an internal
| language in response to data in which you then make
| decisions?
|
| The process of ANN evaluation is the same as fitting terms
| in a type theory and producing an outcome based on that
| term. We call that "reasoning" in most cases.
|
| I don't care if submarines "swim"; I care they propel
| themselves through the water.
|
| > calling this intelligence is, in my opinion, muddying the
| waters of how far away we are from actual AI
|
| Goldfish show mild intelligence because they can learn
| mazes; ants farm; bees communicate the location of food via
| dance; etc.
|
| I think you're the one muddying the waters by placing some
| special status on human like intelligence without
| recognizing the spectrum of natural intelligence and that
| neural networks legitimately fit on that spectrum.
| tdehnel wrote:
| But the spectrum is an illusion. It's not like humans are
| just chimpanzees (or ants or cats) with more compute.
|
| Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or chimpanzee
| and made it compute more data infinitely faster, you
| wouldn't get AGI.
|
| Humans can do something fundamentally unique. They are
| _universal explainers_. They can take on board any
| explanation and use it for creative thought instantly.
| They do not need to be trained in the sense that neural
| nets do.
|
| Creating new ideas, making and using explanations, and
| critiquing our own thoughts is what makes humans special.
|
| You can't explain something to a goldfish and have it
| change its behavior. A goldfish isn't thinking "what if I
| go right after the third left in the maze".
|
| Credit to David Deutsch for these ideas.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or
| chimpanzee and made it compute more data infinitely
| faster, you wouldn't get AGI.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| > They can take on board any explanation and use it for
| creative thought instantly. They do not need to be
| trained in the sense that neural nets do.
|
| This is patently false: I can explain a math topic people
| can't immediately apply -- and require substantial
| training (ie, repeated exposure to examples of that data)
| to get it correct... if they ever learn it at all. Anyone
| with a background in tutoring has experienced this claim
| being false.
|
| > Creating new ideas, making and using explanations, and
| critiquing our own thoughts is what makes humans special.
|
| Current AI has approaches for all of these.
| tdehnel wrote:
| >Citation needed.
|
| That's a lazy critique. With a lack of concrete evidence
| either way, we can only rely on the best explanation
| (theory). What's your explanation for how an AGI is just
| an ant with more compute? I've given my explanation for
| why it's not: an AGI would need to have the ability to
| create new explanatory knowledge (i.e. not just
| synthesize something that it's been trained to do).
|
| As an example, you can currently tell almost any person
| (but certainly no other animal or current AI) "break into
| this room without destroying anything and steal the most
| valuable object in it". Go ahead and try that with a
| faster ant.
|
| On your tutoring example, just because a given person
| doesn't use their special capabilities doesn't mean they
| don't have them. Your example could just as easily be
| interpreted to mean that tutors just haven't figured out
| how to tutor effectively. As a counter example, would you
| say your phone doesn't have the ability to run an app
| which is not installed on it?
|
| >Current AI has approaches for all these.
|
| But has it solved them? Or is there an explanation as to
| why it hasn't solved them yet? What new knowledge has AI
| created?
|
| I know as a member of a ML research group you _really
| want_ current approaches to be the solution to AGI. We
| are making progress I admit. But until we can explain how
| general intelligence works, we will not be able to
| program it.
| [deleted]
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Variations of this exact argument happen in every single
| comment thread relating to AI. It's almost comical.
|
| "The NN [decides/thinks/understands]..."
|
| "NNs are just programs doing statistical computations,
| they don't [decide/think/understand/"
|
| "Your brain is doing the same thing."
|
| "Human thought is not the same as a Python program doing
| linear algebra on a static set of numbers."
|
| And really, I can't agree or disagree with either premise
| because I have two very strong but very conflicting
| intuitions: 1) human thought and consciousness is
| qualitatively different from a Python program doing
| statistics. 2) the current picture of physics leaves no
| room for such a qualitative difference to exist - the
| character of the thoughts (qualia) must be illusory or
| epiphenomenal in some sense
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I don't think those are in conflict: scale has a quality
| all its own.
|
| I'm not claiming AI have anything similar to human
| psychology, just that the insistence they have _zero_
| "intelligence" is in conflict with how we use that word
| to describe animals: they're clearly somewhere between
| bees /ants and dogs.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| The conflict is that, at one point (the Python program)
| there are no qualities - just behaviors, but at some
| point the qualities (which are distinct phenomena)
| somehow enter in, when all that has been added in
| physical terms is more matter and energy.
| V__ wrote:
| > by placing some special status on human like
| intelligence without recognizing the spectrum of natural
| intelligence
|
| You're right, yes, if you see it as the whole spectrum,
| sure. I was more thinking about the colloquial meaning of
| an AI of human-like intelligence. My view was therefore
| from a different perspective:
|
| > So is the equation modeling your brain.
|
| I would argue that is still open to debate. Sure, if the
| universe is deterministic, then everything is just one
| big math problem. If there is some natural underlying
| randomness (quanta phenomena etc.) then maybe there is
| more than deterministic math to it.
|
| > We call that "reasoning" in most cases.
|
| Is a complex if-else-structure reasoning? Reasoning, to
| my, implies some sort of consciousness, and being able to
| "think". If a neural network doesn't know the answer,
| more thinking won't result in one. A human can (in some
| cases) reason about inputs and figure out an answer after
| some time, even if they didn't know it in the beginning.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > I was more thinking about the colloquial meaning of an
| AI of human-like intelligence.
|
| Then it sounds like we're violently agreeing -- I
| appreciate you clarifying.
|
| I try to avoid that mindset, because it's possible that
| AI will become intelligent in a way unlike our own
| psychology, which is deeply rooted in our evolutionary
| history.
|
| My own view is that AI aren't human-like, but are
| "intelligent" somewhere between insects and dogs. (At
| present.)
|
| > If a neural network doesn't know the answer, more
| thinking won't result in one.
|
| I think reinforcement learning contradicts that, but
| current AIs don't use that ability dynamically. But GAN
| cycles and adversarial training for, eg, go suggest that
| AIs given time to contemplate a problem can self-improve.
| (That is, we haven't implemented it... but there's also
| no fundamental roadblock.)
| pseudolus wrote:
| I believe one of the earliest applications incorporating this
| line of thought was MONIAC, the Monetary National Income Analogue
| Computer, which used water levels to model the economy [0].
| There's a short youtube documentary on its history and operation.
| [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAZavOcEnLg&ab_channel=Reser...
|
| https://youtu.be/rAZavOcEnLg?t=101 (shows operation of MONIAC)
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Analog computers are from the 19th century; they were used to
| decompose signals using the Fourier transform, since it's
| easy(ish) to get a bunch of different frequency oscillators.
| They used them for tides and differential equations.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer
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